At entertainment facilities, and particularly in movie theatres, popcorn is frequently served in an open-ended container. One conventional popcorn container in heavy use is a foldable blank with locking flaps at each end which possesses a box-like shape. Such popcorn boxes are generally shipped in a flattened form to reduce shipping and handling costs, and are "popped out" to form the box when the popcorn is ready for packaging. However, the conventional popcorn box is not particularly suited for containing popcorn over which melted butter has been poured. The melted butter has a tendency to travel downwardly through the container and leak through the box flaps, thereby presenting a potential for staining the clothing of the customer.
Open-topped cup-like containers have been proposed for solving the problem of melted butter leakage. Truncated cone-shaped cups are frequently used for containing popcorn and substantially eliminate any leakage problems of butter. However, such cup-like containers, although stackable and nestable, require at least two separate and independent blanks to assemble the complete truncated cone-shaped cup, namely, a circular base member and a conical wall portion.
Another open-topped container is a nestable container as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,743,169 to Person. The container is formed from a single blank sheet by scoring and die cutting the blank, folding it into the container, and fastening panels along the seams with elongated beads of adhesive.
The open-ended container in the aforementioned patent, however, possesses a number of disadvantages. First of all, in order to form the container, six separate sets of scorings must be made. Two pairs of parallel scorings are made in order to form the base portion 12, two pairs of diagonal scorings are made to form the continuous sidewalls 13, 15, and two other separate pairs of diagonal scorings are made to form the short end walls 17, 18. Thus, the scoring machine must be set up to provide each of the six separate pairs of scorings.
Another problem with the Person container is that notched areas 31-34 must be die-cut from the blank in order to form the container. This results in the creation of paperboard waste portions which must be discarded or reused; in either case, the small waste portions must be collected and handled by the cutting equipment. This contributes to additional expense in providing equipment to handle the wastage.
It also is more difficult to pre-break the Person container because of the absence of collinear straight scoring lines which extend across the width or length of the container. The parallel scores which form the base portion do not extend to the edges of the container along the parallel lines in either direction; rather, separate diagonal scores extend from the corners of the base along diagonal lines to the edges. When the blank is pre-broken prior to assembly, difficulties are sometimes encountered in causing a blank to break along the score lines. Pre-breaking the Person blank either lengthwise or widthwise requires apparatus for holding down a portion of the blank adjacent the score line to force the pre-break to follow the score lines of the base and the diagonal. Additional complexity and expense are then required for the container-forming equipment.
Still another problem with the Person container blank is that the four adhesive strips 35-38 are not collinear. This results in the requirement that one piece of adhesive-application equipment be set up to apply the two parallel adhesive strips 37, 38, and another separate piece of adhesive-application equipment be set up to apply the diagonal adhesive strips 35, 36. Again, this contributes to the complexity and expense of the container-forming equipment.
All of the above problems when combined contribute to significantly greater expense in forming the containers, especially when it is considered that many millions of containers of this type are used yearly in the United States alone. Due to the high volumes involved, there is a long felt need for providing simpler and less expensive open-top containers which can be manufactured with fewer steps and less complex equipment.